XXXV. Temple Trustee Pays for His Crime

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XXXV. TEMPLE TRUSTEE PAYS FOR HIS CRIME

 

Sri Sai Baba occasionally narrated a few reminiscences of his own past

births. These were never taken down and most are forgotten. But a few are

still fresh in the memory of the hearers. One of these is given below,

substantially as given out by Baba. The readers will note how every sentence

of his brims with wisdom and virtue; and now, for centuries, Baba is the

same Samartha carrying on his mission of helping humanity with his

superhuman power, lofty principles and benign impartiality.

One morning, Sri Sai Baba strolled along till he came to a river bank. There

he sat under a tree, admiring the dense foliage of an alley and lit his pipe

with a pair of flints. A wayfarer came up and the hospitable Baba gave him a

few puffs out of his pipe. Then a peculiar sound was heard.

Wayfarer: Let us see what the matter is.

Sai Baba: Matter! It is the croaking in pain of a frog seized by a snake. It

is reaping the fruit of its own karma. What we have done in the past comes

to us now as present suffering. And yet there is an outcry against Fate!

The wayfarer went out to see the frog for himself.

Sai .Baba (without leaving his seat):— The frog is caught by a huge serpent

and is crying. But both frog and serpent were wicked in their past birth and

have come into their present bodies to reap their reward.

The wayfarer, returning to Baba : Yes, I went and saw. A big frog, it is, in

the mouth of a huge black serpent. IB 10 or 20 minutes, it will be all over

with the poor frog!

Sai Baba: No. I am its father and am here. Will I let the snake eat it? Just

see how I realise it!

Then Baba walked on to the place where the frog was, The wayfarer who was

going in advance suddenly took fright.

Wayfarer: Baba, let us go back. Do not go nearer. The serpant may fly at us.

Sai Baba : Do not fear.

Sai Baba then went near and thus addressed the creatures.

Sai Baba : Hallo! Veerabhadrappa! Even now, you have no pity for your enemy

Basappa though he has now taken birth as a frog, just as you have turned

into a serpent? Shame! Shame upon your hatred! Get rid of hatred and rest in

peace!

These words acted like magic. The snake let go its, prey, dived into the

river and was lost to sight. The frog hopped away and hid in some tree.

Wayfarer: What a wonder! I cannot see why the snake dropped its prey at your

words. Which of these creatures is Veerabhadrappa, and which Basappa? Give

me their full history, please.

Sai Baba resumed his seat, shared a few puffs with his visitor at his pipe

and spoke :

Some 6 or 7 miles off my place, there was a village sanctified by a temple

of Maheswara. That temple was getting dilapidated. So the villagers began to

collect funds for its renovation. The treasurer appointed was a rich miser.

He spent but little of the collections on the renovation which consequently

made very poor progress; and he swallowed much of the public funds. Seeing

the work thus hampered, God appeared in a dream and told the wife of the

treasurer: "If you spend any money in renovating this temple, Maheswara will

give it to you back a hundredfold". On waking, the wife communicated the

dream to her husband. But he sniffed "expenditure" as the drift of her dream

and this Shylock would launch into no such venture. He replied that this was

no business proposition. Was he not the man incharge of funds? If God

meant business, would He not have come to him? And how far was he from

her?

Another night, God again came to the wife in her dream and said : "Do not

bother yourself about your husband and his money. Give, if you like, out of

your own". The wife then told her lord that she was going to endow the

temple with the value of her own jewels. They were worth Rs. 1000. Then this

treasurer, not content with the amounts already embezzled by him, wanted to

do Maheswara, even in this transaction. He told the wife that he would take

the jewel himself and give God, i e., the temple, his vast stretch of land

as its endowment; and the simple woman agreed. But the land was not his. It

was the property of one Dubaki, a poor widow, who was just then too poor to

redeem it. But there was no period of limitation for exercising th« right of

redemption. And the present posstssion of the land was worth nothing. It was

barren saline coastland yielding nothing in the best of seasons.

Thus ended this transaction; and sometime later there was a terrific storm.

Lightning struck down the house of the treasurer. He and his wife died.

That lady was born in the same village, as the daughter of the temple

priest, two whom the above land had been given as service inam. And she was

named Gowri. She bad come back to enjoy the land and the priest who was very

fond of her donated the land to her use. Then he adopted a boy Basappa who

was no other than Dubaki, the mortgager of that land in the previous birth.

Basappa was to have the riwersion after or a joint right with Gowri. Gowri

had to be married and the priest came to his great friend Sri Sai Baba,

living in a mosque in that birth also, and asked for advice. Baba told him

to wait,—for the man destined to marry her would himself soon turn up. Then

came a poor boy of their caste named Veerabadrappa, and he married Gowri.

Who was Veera-badrappa? That embezzler of public money, and God's money, the

treasurer. He had been born of poor parents at Muttra and named

Veerabadrappa. Veerabadrappa was at first devoted to Baba as the latter had

proposed his marriage to Gowri.

But the old hankering for wealth was still working in Veerabadrappa

and he appealed to the Fakir Baba to get him wealth. Baba told him to

wait, for the suitable time would be coming soon.

And it came, For that vast stretch of coast land, there was at last a demand

and a sudden appreciation of value. It sold for Rs. 1,00,000 (just 100 times

the worth of the jewels) a moiety of which was paid down in cash, the rest

being payable in twenty-five annual instalments. Now was Veera-badrappa's

chance. He tried to clutch at that money. Basappa was naturally hostile to

his claims and resisted his efforts.

Baba's intercessioh was sought and Baba pointed out that Gowri had the right

to the entire money and that none else should interfere. Veerabadrappa got

angry with Basappa and Baba. He threatened to kill Basappa who, in his

cowardice sought refuge from Baba. Baba plighted his word that he would

shield him from the wrath of his wicked foe. Then the parties to this feud

died. Veerabadrappa was born as the serpent and was still unrelenting in his

hatred. The coward Basappa was born as a frog. Veerabadrappa tried even in

this birth to kill his enemy.

Winding up, Baba said. "Hearing the miserable croaking of Basappa, and

remembering my pledge to save him, I am here. I have kept my word and saved

him".

Baba then changed his expression and said "God saved Baiappa, his devotee,

by sending me. All this is God's lila or sport".

This may be taken for perfectly true history. For Baba never spoke anything

but truth. This anecdote has been embodied in grand sonorous Oviverse in

Dabolkar's Sai Sat-charita Ch. 47.

That book is read for daily study, "Parayana" by numerous devotees of Sri

Baba. One day, Mr, G. B. Dattar, B.A..LL.B., a pleader of Thana, was reading

it. A lady in the bouse was litening to it in a half drowsy condition. She

suffered from periodical internal pains as she listened she burst out half

involuntarily, in that drowsy condition, and said "Baba, you have such pity

for a dumb irrational creature. Have you no pity for me, a huaian being?"

Then she heard a voice emanating apparently from a peg in the wall saying

"Will you give me Rs. 5 dakshina for the Dasstrah?" And she answered she

would, if she was cured. At once she woke up from her dozing condition and

had the money sent up to Sai Sansthan. She began to improve and in some

hours, her agony considerably abated. This was in 1932.

 

(This is from the book"The Wonderous Saint Sai Baba" written by Pujyasri

V.Narasimaswami,founder President of All India Sai Samaj,

Chennai...........This book can be read from www.saileelas.org)